Sunday, January 7, 2018

Staying In

While the rest of Canada is experiencing bone chilling temperatures we are experiencing rain - I'll take that any day over the extreme cold days that we previously lived in when living through Alberta winters. We need to take down the Christmas lights but I don't really want to do that in the rain so it will wait a few more days. I might gather up the ones at the back of the house to dry off and organize before we store them. This weekend has been slow, all about doing laundry, hubby unpacking from his trip and cooking.

Hubby did make it home on time on Friday night, what is a complete miracle based on all the weather cancellations and delays. And the fact that his Westjet plane was preparing to depart at the exact same terminal at the exact same moment as this collision of two aircraft which resulted in a fire and the passengers deplaning by chute at Toronto Pearson airport. He had been texting me wondering why after boarding it took 70 minutes for them to take off. They were told it was a cold weather delay then a problem with catering as they were the opposite side of the terminal and couldn't see the fire. I think that the crew decided to tell people another story rather than what was really going on but fortunately he didn't miss his connecting flight at Calgary and got home on time. I watched the news and immediately realized what had happened and texted him so when he got to Calgary he was filled in.

Anyway, this weekend involves a lot of relaxation. When I am relaxed I actually feel like cooking so I made one of my best taco casseroles which is a combination of a few different recipes to use the ingredients I already had. I managed to use two small containers of my home grown tomatoes from last summer's bumper cherry tomato crop in the process. It drives me bananas that in Canada the cheapest I can get corn tortillas is $3 for 10 but I like them so buy them once in a while for recipes like these. I have only purchased two fresh tomatoes since running out of my own supply in November after the ripened from early October picking. They go for $2.98 a pound right now so I am making due with these frozen ones.

I've also gotten back on the smoothie bandwagon now that I have a really good kitchenaid blender. I am so glad I won that facebook auction and only paid $31 for this model which I am pretty sure goes for $195 Canadian. Originally I thought it was more the base model but now that I have used it several times am amazed by it's chopping power. I could chop a frozen steak in this thing no problem - it blows away my old blender which we still have never found the middle piece to the lid lost back in December. This concoction is frozen mango, frozen blackberries (free for the picking from last August, still have a large supply left), half an orange, small blob of flavoured pinneapple coconut yogurt, and milk. It is my smoothie of choice - can't stand green smoothies, only fruit for me.

Hubby is making a ham/corn/potato chowder in the slow cooker today and I will make some biscuits to go with it when we eat supper. Buddy is currently snoozing. This is a picture of him rolling around in warm towels from the dryer. He loves warm laundry, thank goodness he is such a clean dog. Warm laundry is #3 after fireplace and electric blanket for him.

30 comments:

Awwwww Buddy is so cute! My cats always help me with the laundry - hah!! When I open the dryer door Luna jumps in. The only thing that will get her out once I remove the warm dry clothes is when I start throwing in the wet clothes - then she skedaddles! They both love to lay on the clean clothes in the laundry basket which I try to discourage as I don't want cat hair on clean clothes. Luna loves to be carried around in the empty laundry basket - she thinks she's the Queen of Sheba!

We are chilling out today too. My daughter's best friend is here for her birthday and they're going to the movies this afternoon. Hubby and I will watch a movie at home and then we'll all go out for Mexican tonight.

I'm a 'climate conscious' type of person.I'm afraid of storms, hate cold and heavy rains. Cloudiness affects my joints. So, even if in my younger days I had emigration thoughts (after all I live in the turbulent Middle East), the weather issue kept me back.

Nothing like a good rain and no reason to have to go out to do a marathon cooking day. The taco casserole looks delicious. We too are on the smoothie kick. Our favorites lately are banana, strawberry, and Greel yogurt. Hubs likes blueberrys thrown in his.

Today was an easy day. Got a $50 gift card from Safeway. Each time you pick up an persribtion you get sticker on your card and once you have 5 stickers you then recieve your gift card. Not sure how it comes all out in wash.Coffee is on

Glad your husband had no idea what was going on while he was waiting for take pff. I thin it would have been incredibly alarming.I have had a couple of green smoothies out and they were good. Mine? Not so hot so I stick to the fruit ones too, but I am not much of a smoothie drinker.

Having no plans, just a lazy weekend ahead is my idea of bliss. And oddly enough I find I get an awful lot done on those occasions too, particularly trying out recipes. Glad your hubs made it back on time. I will be flying through Toronto when I go to Costa Rica in a couple of weeks. Pretty odd itinerary to my mind - Geneva/London (can't get round that), London/Toronto, then Toronto/Costa Rica. First time on Air Canada. I hope they are good. Anna

Air Canada is ok, decent planes etc. They used to have a terrible reputation for nasty attitude of their workers. A lot of Canadians dislike them as they have strikes about once or twice a year due to a terrible union. We recently flew them to Edmonton though as could only get air miles space on them and had good ontime service. I am sure your flighs will be fine :)